Skip theft is a reality! Cost = €100,000
€100,000 in thefts for this professional: "I am very angry, I feel a sense of abandonment"
Cédric Guillerme, a scrap metal dealer in the Guingamp region (Côtes-d'Armor), has reached his breaking point. He is suffering from repeat thefts and feels that he is not being heard. He’s had enough!
On the night of June 24 to 25, 2025, Cédric Guillerme, a business owner from Grâces, near Guingamp, was the victim of a theft. The financial loss amounts to €6,000.
The object of the crime is a 9m³ metal dumpster weighing nearly 900 kg. It disappeared from the yard of a roofing company a good dozen kilometers away, where it was being rented out.
The second theft in one week!
Cédric Guillerme is the owner of Guillerme Ferrailles. The company, based in Grâces since 2013, specializes in the collection, recycling, and recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous waste.
It also rents out dumpsters, mostly to businesses within a fifty-kilometer radius of Grâces. Guillerme Ferrailles owns 450 dumpsters.
The theft on the night of June 24 to 25 is the second of its kind in the span of a week.
19 thefts since 2016
Over the last nine years, the professional has had 19 of his dumpsters stolen! "They are worth between €4,500 and €6,000 each; I've lost €100,000," he complains. "Not to mention my time and energy!"
Cédric Guillerme is furious: "I am very angry, and I also feel a sense of abandonment."
Here, he points the finger at the gendarmerie, whom he deems unwilling to investigate the matter. "It would be good if they went to the companies where the thefts are committed to view security camera footage, but they don't even do that," the scrap dealer laments. "And I am not the only professional affected by these thefts!"
Cédric Guillerme has filed a complaint every single time.
One found in Brest, another in Rennes
Of the 19 dumpsters stolen, only two have been recovered: one near Brest, by the gendarmes; the other in Rennes, quite unexpectedly.
"It was a friend, a bus driver, who spotted it in a town square in December 2024. It was filled with Christmas trees intended for sale. The person using it had just removed my brand sticker, but it kept its yellow color, specific to my company. You can't mistake it!"
Recovering this dumpster still cost Cédric Guillerme dearly. "It was seized by the authorities for the purposes of the investigation and held at the impound lot for 63 days. And I was the one who paid the bill: €1,705, plus the cost of the trip to go retrieve it and the time lost..."
"Stolen dumpsters intended for resale"
For the Grâces scrap dealer, "these stolen dumpsters are intended for resale." And committing these thefts is relatively simple. "You just need to have an Ampliroll truck, meaning one equipped with a hydraulic arm."
According to Cédric Guillerme, all these dumpster thefts were committed at night or early in the morning, before the opening of the businesses where they were stationed.
TICATAG has solutions for this very issue...
Since 2024, TICATAG has indeed been working with recycling professionals to offer a solution with a dual objective:
- To provide tracking in the event of theft to recover the dumpster within the following days.
- To assist operations by optimizing fleet management via targeted reports and better cost-effectiveness.
Want to know more? ...our teams are here to answer your questions
